Bowlby's theory of maternal deprivation

What is maternal deprivation?

The continual presence of care from a mother is essential for normal psychological development of babies, both emotionally and intellectually.

‘Mother-love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health’ (Bowlby)

Being separated from a mother in early childhood has serious consequences (Maternal Deprivation)

What is the difference between separation and deprivation?

Separation = Child not being in the presence of the primary attachment figure

This only becomes a problem if the child becomes deprived of emotional care.

Brief separations are not significant for development (especially where the child is with a substitute caregiver who can provide emotional care) but extended separations can lead to deprivation, which causes harm.

What is Bowlby’s critical period for psychological development?

The first 2 ½ years of life

What happens if a child is separated from their mother during the critical period?

If a child is separated from their mother and in the absence of substitute care, during the critical period, then Bowlby said psychological damage was inevitable.

Bowlby said there was a continuing risk up to age of 5

What are the 2 ways that maternal deprivation affects development?

It affects

1. Intellectual development

2. Emotional development

How does maternal deprivation affect intellectual development?

They would experience delayed intellectual development, characterised by abnormally low IQ.

This is demonstrated in studies of adoption. E.g. Goldfarb found lower IQ in children who had remained in institutions as opposed to those who were fostered and thus had a higher standard of emotional care.

How does maternal deprivation affect emotional development?

Affectionless psychopathy - inability to experience guilt or strong emotion towards others.

This prevents a person developing fulfilling relationships and is associated with criminality. They also cannot appreciate the feelings of victims and so lack remorse for their actions

What was the aim of Bowlby’s research?

Bowlby’s 44 Thieves study examined the link between affectionless psychopathy and maternal deprivation

What was the procedure of Bowlby’s research?

• The sample in this study was 44 criminal teenagers accused of stealing.

• All ‘thieves’ were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy: characterised as a lack of affection, lack of guilt about their actions and lack of empathy for their victims.

• Their families were also interviewed to establish whether the ‘thieves’ had prolonged early separations from their mothers.

• The sample was compared to a control group of 44 non-criminal but emotionally-disturbed young people.

What were the findings of Bowlby’s research?

• 14 of the 44 thieves could be described as affectionless psychopaths and 12 of these had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first 2 years of their lives.

• BUT, only 5 of the remaining 30 ‘thieves’ had experienced separations.

• Only 2 participants in the control group of 44 had experienced long separations.

What did Bowlby conclude from his research?

Prolonged early separation/deprivation causes affectionless psychopathy

What is a limitation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?

It is based off poor quality evidence

Bowlby’s 44 thieves study is flawed because it was Bowlby himself who carried out both the family interviews and the assessments for affectionless psychopathy.

Other sources of evidence were equally flawed. E.g. Bowlby was influenced by the findings of Goldfarb’s research on the development of deprived children in wartime orphanages. This study had problems of confounding variables because the children in Goldfarb’s study had experienced early trauma and institutional care as well as prolonged separation from their primary caregivers.

This means that Bowlby’s original sources of evidence for maternal deprivation had serious flaws and would not be taken as serious evidence nowadays.

COUNTERPOINT

New research supports the idea that maternal deprivation has long-term effects. Levy et al showed that separating baby rats from their mother for a day had a permanent effect on their social development.

This means that although Bowlby relied on flawed evidence to support the theory of MD, there are other sources of evidence for his ideas.

What is another limitation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?

His confusion between different types of early experience

Rutter drew an important distinction between 2 types of early negative experience.

Deprivation refers to the loss of primary attachment figure after attachment has developed.

Privation is the failure to form any attachment in the first place (this may occur when children are brought up in institutional care)

Rutter said that the severe long-term damage Bowlby associated with deprivation is more likely to be the result of privation -→ So, in Goldfarb’s study, the children may actually have been ‘prived’ rather than deprived.

Also, many of the children in the 44 thieves study had disrupted early lives and may never have formed strong attachments.

This means that Bowlby may have overestimated the seriousness of the effects of deprivation in children’s development.

What is another limitation of Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation?